Freedom: Cornerstone of all other gifts

Monday

Jun 4, 2012 at 12:01 AM

When we think of freedom, we often think of troubled war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan and even Ground Zero.

Susan Hanley LaneLife in the Middle

When we think of freedom, we often think of troubled war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan and even Ground Zero.But for those of us who call ourselves Christians, the most important battle ever fought happened on a hillside just outside the ancient town of Jerusalem. A young Jewish carpenter named Jesus was nailed to a wooden cross for the crime of openly disagreeing with the religious hierarchy of his day.But the real battle was for much higher stakes. The prize that day was freedom; the right to choose what you believed and how you were going to act on that belief. The young carpenter’s premise was that only when we are free to believe as we choose, is the thing we choose to believe in worth anything.It’s remarkable how consistent our battles seem to be, these ideological battles we humans are always fighting. Isn’t that the same battle we seem to be fighting now? Remember the initiative we found on our ballots just a few weeks ago, Amendment One, where marriage was clearly defined as the union of one man and one woman?For many Christians, it may feel like we won that battle. After all, the initiative passed. But you can win a battle and still lose the war. Amendment One went a long way toward losing the war, not just for Christians but for everyone.Ironically, gay marriage was already illegal in North Carolina.What was lost was the right to believe as I choose, or as you choose, for that matter. You see, compelling people to believe as I do has a built-in pitfall: When there is no right to disagree, the right to agree is forfeited at the same time. It becomes a simple matter of whose opinion is in vogue at the moment.Example: In the 1950s, open homosexuality was not tolerated in America, so much so that it was overlooked when straight men killed or brutalized homosexual men. This prevalent societal attitude made it impossible for open-minded people to voice their true opinions on homosexuality.In order for a person to be accepted in society, he or she had to go along with the politically correct opinion of the time, that homosexuality was an aberration against the laws of God and of nature. If a person did not share this view, he or she had to feign acceptance.It is the same today. In almost every part of America except the Bible Belt, our society’s attitudes about which side of this controversy is correct have gone 180 degrees from where they were 60 years ago. But the human reaction to a different point of view and whether or not that point of view will be tolerated without political and societal repercussions is unchanged.

The great premise of Christianity is that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The words “whosoever believes” mean that God was willing to place His Son’s life on the line and forfeit it for the sake of freedom of choice. But freedom of choice is not true freedom unless it extends both ways: the issue of contention safely guarded by my right to agree on the one side and my right to disagree on the other.Unless all Americans are free to voice their acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle; unless all Americans are free to voice their disagreement with the principles behind the homosexual lifestyle on the grounds that it does not agree with their understanding of the Bible — then neither side is actually free. It then becomes a matter of which crowd you are aligned with. One is safe only when he is with his own crowd.True freedom, the kind that God wants for us and the kind that the Founding Fathers of America had in mind when they set up the separation of church and state, is based on people having the right to choose for themselves.God Himself refuses to make up our minds for us. He insists that we choose. He will accept only that service that is freely given. Anything else is coercion.The Founding Fathers of America were well acquainted with the history of the Protestant Reformation. They understood that separation of church and state was an absolute necessity in order for a free and unfettered congress of ideas to flourish.No true freedom is possible if one man may prescribe a belief system for another. The moment we are allowed to impose our beliefs on another, the possibility is set in place for that person to later impose his beliefs on me when the fickle pendulum of popular opinion swings the other way.The First Amendment was not a mistake. When the words were chosen, “Congress shall make no law …” they were written that way for a distinct reason. Whenever a body of men (i.e., Congress) makes a law, it is inherently based on the intentions of the men making that law. Intentions are based on desires and purposes, and the American idea was that no man or body of men would have the right to impose their desires and purposes (beliefs) on another man.The message of the Gospel is that God loved humanity enough to give us a choice. God refuses to impose His will on anyone. In every situation, He allows us to make choices, then lets the consequences of our choices be our best teachers. If God is this wise and this gracious, who are we to impose our will on others?